Free Republic

It's billed as "The Hottest Ticket in Political History:" A debate between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush at Radio City Music Hall. The event will happen in February as part of MSG Entertainment's third annual "Minds That Move The World" speakers series. The former presidents will debate topics "ranging from the economy, to foreign policy, to the current administration." From the press release: The series will be formatted to allow for President Clinton and President Bush to each present their thoughts on a wide range of important current events and national issues through a moderated question and answer period...

The Afghan election is over and fortunately the Taliban did not wreak a bloodbath on voters as they had promised. However, they still caused quite a bit of carnage with suicide bombings in Kabul. As you probably know by now, the runoff election was cancelled when the contender, Abdullah Abdullah, dropped out of the race in protest, calling the election fixed. This can't be helpful to anyone except the Taliban! The Karzai regime was already discredited due to charges of widespread corruption, but Abdullah calling the election a farce has really got to drop his popularity. In truth, Afghani's...

"Thought crime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for awhile...but sooner or later they were bound to get you." (George Orwell, 1984) "The fact is we are witnessing an all-out drive to impose thought control that seeks to ban the ability - -the right - to think or speak for one's self. Thinking is becoming a crime." (“Globally Acceptable Truth and the Crime of Thinking”, Tom DeWeese, Address to the 10th Annual Freedom 21 Conference, 10/16/09) In an article entitled “Dems Undermine Free Speech in Hate Crimes Ploy,” the Washington Examiner exposes the...

I thought I read this somewhere about a year or two ago. Any help on this?

This weekend’s feedback is in response to a number of queries about the Church of England (Anglicans) officially apologizing to Darwin. However, they don’t speak for all attenders of this church, since many of them are still faithful to Scripture and are appalled by their ‘leaders’. There are numerous mistakes in the article by the official CoE representative, a Rev. Dr Malcolm Brown, on the official CoE website, and Jonathan Sarfati replies point-by-point...

TUESDAY is Election Day 2009. Already, it has been a year since Barack Obama rode the "hope and change" bandwagon to victory in the 2008 presidential election. Today, we can look back over what Obama has brought to us in that year. In Lorain, Obama has brought ... well, maybe that's not such a good example. Not much change here, but we can hope for more jobs and business, eventually. Let's take a wider look at a checklist of big Obama & Company plans and their progress: "Get out of Iraq." — Not yet. "Fight the real war in Afghanistan."...

I cannot stand today’s modern liberalism. It used to advocate freedom from tyranny, but now it advocates a new form of tyranny at the expense of freedom. It does exactly the opposite now of what it used to do at this country’s founding. The political cycle works in this fashion. When Conservatives are in office for a long time, the people veer left, and when liberals are in office, the people veer right. It reminds me of the idea that the ancient Greek philosopher Plato cited when he said, “The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite...

News from across the pond shows yet another means via which liberal, anti-family types are pushing to separate children from their parents. The lead paragraph says it all:

FRANKFORT, Kentucky -- Gov. Steve Beshear has angered some Christians with his yuletide terminology. A giant evergreen that will brighten the Capitol lawn this winter won't be called a Christmas tree. Instead, the Beshear administration has dubbed it a "holiday tree." The Rev. Jeff Fugate, pastor of Clays Mill Baptist Church in Lexington, said Christians find the change troubling. "If you call it a holiday tree," Fugate asked, "which holiday are you talking about? We don't put up a holiday tree for Easter or New Year's or Thanksgiving. We put a tree up for Christmas." Beshear administration spokeswoman Cindy Lanham...

Boomer Religion For anyone who strongly identifies with traditional Christianity, the October 6-9 series on Fox News's Hannity, with Sean Hannity interviewing Michael Moore, was rich in irony and vaguely distressing. The occasion was Moore's new film, Capitalism: A Love Story. Two bright, likable, and deeply sincere married men of middle age passionately argued the positions of the liberal Democrats or progressives (Moore) and the conservative Republicans (Hannity). What generated some irony was that both celebrity worldlings revealed themselves to be regular Sunday mass-goers. They viewed their years in Catholic schools warmly and with pride, and readily associated some of...

Thank you very much. Thank you and good evening. The sponsor has been identified, but unlike most television programs, the performer hasn't been provided with a script. As a matter of fact, I have been permitted to choose my own ideas regarding the choice that we face in the next few weeks. I have spent most of my life as a Democrat. I recently have seen fit to follow another course. I believe that the issues confronting us cross party lines. Now, one side in this campaign has been telling us that the issues of this election are the maintenance...

Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed? Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths: The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith. They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright. They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of...

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) is drawing criticism from his congressional colleagues, but President Obama offered him some warm words at a Miami fundraiser for the Democratic congressional campaign committees last night. Obama, in introducing the members of Congress in attendance, called Grayson – along with Florida Reps. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Kendrick Meek – as “outstanding members of Congress.” Obama may regret his praise of Grayson, who is now drawing fire from members in both parties for referring to Linda Robertson, the adviser to Obama’s Fed Chief Ben Bernanke as a “K Street whore” in a radio interview last month. And...

Most thoughtful commentators bemoan the decline of bipartisanship and the coarsening of political discourse in the United States. The president promised to reach out to the opposition and hoped for 80 Senate votes for his stimulus bill. But he disregarded all Republican suggestions for the bill and acquiesced in its Pelosification into a groaning, creaking, Democratic gravy train. I remember, as a very young person, the august comparative tranquillity of the Eisenhower era, when the president requested national air time only for matters of indisputable national interest. He never abused this privilege, and there was no call for equal time....

According to CNSNews.com, “Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) would not say what part of the Constitution grants Congress the power to force every American to buy health insurance – as all of the health care overhaul bills currently do.” That actually is not quite accurate: Leahy, who has been in office far too long to remember why he is there, could not say what part of the Constitution authorizes the unauthorizable. Read more ...

There has been much talk of late about the "Enemies List" that the Obama administration is working off of. As a public service to our readers, we are publishing the items one must be aware of in order to be taken off the Obama Hate list.You might be on Obama's Enemies List if: If you have a degree from a college in something other than Law, Civics, Theater Arts, Education or Political Science If you have ever attended a tea party or ever complained about paying your taxes If you make enough money to have to pay taxes If you...

Why Republicans Remain Reprehensible - - Part 502 Calls for Political Civil War bythelastcrusade.org The Republican leaders of the House of Representatives have endorsed a GOP congressional candidate in New York who supports abortion, same-sex "marriage," and President Obama's economic "stimulus" program. The November 3 special election in New York's 23rd Congressional District features Republican far left candidate Dede Scozzafava, Democrat Bill Owens, and Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. Despite her widely publicized endorsement of abortion on demand, the federal endorsement of gay and lesbian weddings, and her enthusiasm for billions in bail-outs for investment bankers and car manufacturers,...

Is there no depth MSNBC's Chris Matthews won't sink to? Judging from a truly disgraceful comment he made on Thursday's "Hardball," the answer has got to be a resounding "NO!" -snip-

It is no secret that Congress has been overstepping its congressional authority for the better part of the last century. The liberal philosophy has been such that Congress can essentially do anything according to the constitution. Indeed, when asked recently what authority Congress had to mandate individuals to have health insurance, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer opined: Well, in promoting the general welfare the Constitution obviously gives broad authority to Congress to effect that end. The end that we’re trying to effect is to make health care affordable, so I think clearly this is within our constitutional responsibility. Let’s face...

Over the years, I've noticed that most white "progressives" (= liberals) that I've known -- the ones who are on hair-trigger Al Sharpton Alert for the slightest hint of racism in others -- have one feature in common: they live at the corner of Whitebread Avenue and Mayonnaise Lane. The same people who bray the loudest about how "diversity is our strength" and how great the "diverse inner city" is almost always live in the lily-white outer suburbs themselves -- places where a black or Hispanic person had better have a rake or lawn mower in his hands if they're...

Obama administration communications director commended the wisdom of mass murdering Communist Chairman Mao in her address to high school students this past June. Dunn cited Mao and Mother Teresa as her two favorite political philosophers. I wrote about Dunn's address here, John here; both posts include video of Dunn's address. Dunn said to the assembled students: A lot of you have a great deal of ability. A lot of you work hard. Put them together and that answers the "why not" question. There is usually not a good reason. And then the third lesson and tip actually comes from two...

For at least a century, the Washington political class has been correctly known for creating more problems than solving existing ones. This tendency to enact destructive, rather than constructive, solutions for problems (most often created by government) has now gone into hyper-drive. Many who see this situation often blame it on "excessive partisanship," where the real problem is caused by a bipartisan lust for power that breeds too much accommodation, rather than questioning and resistance to bad ideas. The American Founding Fathers understood that a balance of power and endless struggles within government were necessary to preserve individual liberties. Liberties...

RUSH: Now, this is an interesting story from Bloomberg News, ladies and gentlemen, and it's a snapshot out of economy. I love the story for its teachable moment. "Harvard's Bet on Interest Rate Rise Cost $500 Million to Exit." Now, that's the headline. It's a teachable moment about capitalism versus liberal capitalism. Harvard University. Now, what is Harvard? It's our citadel! I mean, it's the best and the brightest, the smartest, the brainiest, our best. The people who know more than the whole world combined are at Harvard. It's America. "Harvard University's failed bet that interest rates would rise cost...

High School 1959 vs 2009... -Scenario 1: Jack goes quail hunting before school and then pulls into the school parking lot with his shotgun in his truck’s gun rack. 1959 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack’s shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack. 2009 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers. -Scenario 2: Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school. 1959 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and...

Liberals are always asking me... "What's wrong with you man? Hey! Isn't your Tea Party movement the same people that believe Barack Obama is a foreigner?" You know, I don't believe Barack Obama is from a foreign country. I only believe that he hasn't shown us a birth certificate. You know, the one his birth doctors signed. And, you know what? I'm right. "What's wrong with you? How can you say Barack Obama is a socialist?" I didn't want to believe that Obama is a Socialist. I just know that Obama told Mr. Werzelbacher, not long ago, that spreading the...

Toward the end of a mostly sympathetic profile of the great journalist and critic H. L. Mencken, Christopher Hitchens once claimed that Mencken’s only “brilliance and verve” occurred during “the period between 1910 and the end of Prohibition.” Which is to say, before Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal came along. It’s an all too common refrain. Biographer Terry Teachout characterized Mencken as “blinded partly by his hatred of Roosevelt.” Mencken scholar Charles A. Fecher—whom you’d expect to know better—declared Mencken’s opinion of Roosevelt to be “maniacal—there is no other word to use.” Although it’s true that Mencken ended the 1930s as...

Liberals going after Rush Limbaugh remind me of the sweaty, screaming hordes of pious Muslims at Mecca, inflamed by fervid religious passion, stoning Satan and trampling fellow believers in the emotionally-pitched frenzy. Why is is the Rush story important?  Because they've called him a racist.  A serious charge.  Words mean things, and the misuse of words cheapens them.  Everyone on all sides have thrown "Hitler" and "Nazi" around until, unfortunately, being called a mass murderer or a member of his hideous regime is no longer an insult.  "Racist!" has lost it's sting The left has done the same mortal...

With apologies to Kermit the frog, turns out it can also be sleazy being green. People who buy goods perceived to be morally good are more likely to go on to lie, cheat and steal, according to a study by researchers at University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, inspired by a shared interest in green living and an appreciation of how the human mind can justify bad behaviour, found that people who are simply exposed to green products behave more altruistically than people who purchase the products. Before any green-bashing begins, the authors stress...

Here’s the feel-good story of the day (NOT) [h/t Drudge]: Oct 15, 2009 Why Are 1 Of 8 Girls Pregnant At Robeson High? Officials Say A Mix Of Factors Are To Blame, As They Try To Help The Young WomenIt is a Chicago public school full of energy and spirit. It has about 800 girls, and 115 of them have something in common – something you might find disturbing.“Might”? “Might”????? CBS 2’s Kristyn Hartman reports.All those young ladies are moms or moms-to-be at Paul Robeson High School. It’s not a school for young mothers, it’s a neighborhood school. And all...

In August 2008, Sweetness & Light warned CPUSA And Obama Platforms Are Identical In November 2008, WorldNetDaily reported Communist Party ecstatic over ‘08 election results Amazingly a blogger in New Zealand saw as early as June 2007 Why the Communist Party USA May Decide Your Future The Communist Party USA Platform – has Obama meet their expectations?

Smoking bans in places like restaurants, offices and public buildings reduce cases of heart attacks and heart disease, according to a report released Thursday by a federally commissioned panel of scientists. The report, issued by the Institute of Medicine, concluded that exposure to secondhand smoke significantly increased the risk of having a heart attack among both smokers and nonsmokers. The panel also said it found that a reduction in heart problems began to take effect fairly quickly after a smoking ban was instituted and that exposure to low or fleeting levels of secondhand smoke could cause cardiovascular problems. “Even a...

On September 10th of this year the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) posted a press release informing the world that “from October 19-25, more than 60 network TV shows [will] spotlight the power and personal benefits of service,” and that this “unprecedented block of TV programming is the first wave of a multi-year ‘I Participate’ campaign.”

  On my most recent visit to Amsterdam for the World Congress of Families (WCF), I was once again struck by the remarkable façade of peaceful, tolerant prosperity the Dutch maintain. Although its famous openness to lust and license is ever more apparent, Amsterdam's charm remains in its tidy homes, shops, museums, and beautiful (though empty) churches.   The simple fact, however, is that this beacon of liberalism worldwide is rotting from the inside out and must increasingly rely on deception to keep up appearances as a nation of tolerance, peace, and prosperity.   That was made nowhere more...

On Tuesday’s Countdown show, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann spewed bile at conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, accusing her of possessing "fascistic hatred," and comparing her to a "mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it." During his show’s regular "Worst Person" segment, Olbermann attacked Malkin for her role in bringing attention to the recent controversy over school children in New Jersey singing a song about President Obama.

What happened to the America we all once knew and loved? The land of - baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet. The land of the free and the home of the brave. A country where its citizens felt safe and happy and proud to proclaim, “God bless America!” It seems like those noble ideals which made our country strong and great are fast slipping away and being replaced by the strange and bizarre. As some of our readers may recall, the Bizarro World was a fictitious planet in the DC comics universe, first appearing in the early 1960s. In...

To ensure that psychiatry “permeate every educational activity of national life” and “infiltrate the professional and social activities of [all] people” was a global goal that originated with British Brigadier General Dr. John Rawlings Rees in a 1940 speech to the National Council for Mental Hygiene. He ended on an ominous note: “Though our knowledge be incomplete … I think we must imitate the Totalitarians and organize some kind of fifth column activity.” Canadian colleague Dr. Brock Chisholm chimed in with sinister comments of his own at the close of the war in 1946, in a speech to the World...

Many times, I feel that there is a vital need to bring certain subjects and ideas down to earth for detailed examination. Too many times, there are fundamental truths that people either skew, or demonize to a point that its roots are almost unidentifiable. They do this because they do not want people like you and me to be aware of the powers and rights we actually have. If we the people are unaware of our rights and powers and are completely ignorant of our civic duty to maintain these fundamental truths, then it will be easier to trick us...

In another blow to the false narrative advanced by Tea Party operatives and Fox News that the movement is a “grassroots� uprising of ordinary Americans. A co-founder of the national anti-tax Tea Party Patriots movement, failed to disclose during her numerous media interviews and TV appearances that she and her husband filed for bankruptcy and owed the IRS half a million dollars.

Is leftism rising to the defense of evil even as it sinks to the depths of hell? Perhaps this question would have made a better title for this article but why scare readers away with what may only be construed as preachers pious platitudes. America is busy with economic problems, the war in Afghanistan and healthcare issues, whose got time for questions of morality or theological issues? Apparently no one! While all the current issues are worthy of our attention isn’t it odd that we tend to dismiss the very issue that we ultimately ignore at the price of our...

Making Progress? Writing on the occasion of Ronald Reagan’s death, the NY Times columnist David Brooks articulated the roots of Reagan’s success in as accurate and succinct a way as I’ve seen. Reagan “revolutionized” American conservatism insofar as he transformed it from what had been a disposition to defend tradition and custom – and thus one with an orientation toward the past – to a movement motivated by a deeply optimistic belief in progress – and thus, marked by an upbeat view about the future and America’s providential role in advancing progress. As Brooks wrote, To understand the intellectual content...

The day before President Hope&Change won his worthless Nobel "Peace" Prize, El Rushbo reported about Detroit, a city where thousands lined up to fill out an application for stimulus money. According to local news reports (see here, here, here, and here) the money is supposed to keep these Detroit residents from being homeless or slipping into homelessness. You might be thinking, Why is stimulus money being handed out like candy to Halloween trick-or-treaters to individuals rather than being used to create jobs as promised? The answer is simple: The stimulus was never meant to create jobs; it was meant to...

City, State, % of People Below the Poverty Level : 1. Detroit , MI 32.5% 2. Buffalo , NY 29.9% 3. Cincinnati , OH 27.8% 4. Cleveland , OH 27.0% 5. Miami , FL 26.9% 6. St. Louis , MO 26.8% 7. El Paso , TX 26.4% 8. Milwaukee , WI 26.2% 9. Philadelphia , PA 25.1% 10. Newark , NJ 24.2% U.S. Census Bureau, 2006 American Community Survey, August 2007. What do the top ten cities (over 250,000) with the highest poverty rate all have in common? Detroit , MI (1st on the poverty rate list) hasn't elected a...

The news that President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize seems like a prize bit of satire, like Chicago getting the Olympics. “Are you laughing or crying,” wrote a reader to me. “Neither. I’m thinking about what this tells us about the world today,” I responded. Then I checked over and over and over again on the Internet and called up several people just to make sure that this wasn’t a satire, that some new type of computer virus hadn’t infiltrated my software that would make fools of anyone credulous enough to believe this hoax. And then I...

•If a conservative doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy one. •If a liberal doesn't like guns, he feels that no one should have one ------------------------------------------------------------------- •If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat. •If a liberal is, he wants to ban all meat products for everyone. ------------------------------------------------------------------- •If a conservative sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy. •A liberal wonders how to surrender gracefully and still look good. ------------------------------------------------------------------- •If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life. •If a liberal is homosexual, he loudly demands legislated “respect.” ------------------------------------------------------------------- •If a black...

Remember when Rush Limbaugh used the term "Gorbasm" to describe how the left in America used to react Mikhail Gorbachev? I ask because in today's Huffington Post, Dan Siegel had what can only be called the first ever public, multiple Moore-gasm while describing the newest hypocritical piece of trash from Michael Moore, the successful, capitalist filmmaker who hates capitalism. In the piece, titled (seriously) Michael Moore's Grapes of Wrath, Siegel sets a new standard for leftist hero worship. "Michael Moore has made the most important and urgent political film of our time. In fact, he might have made the most...

Welcome. Come on in. My name is Jay Shafer and since 1997 I have been living in houses smaller than some people’s closets. I call the first of my little hand built houses Tumbleweed. My decision to inhabit just 89 square feet arose from some concerns I had about the impact a larger house would have on the environment, and because I do not want to maintain a lot of unused or unusable space. My houses have met all of my domestic needs without demanding much in return. The simple, slower lifestyle my homes have afforded is a luxury for...

Liberal/Conservative Differences If a conservative doesn't like guns, they don't buy one. If a liberal doesn't like guns, then no one should have one. If a conservative is a vegetarian, they don't eat meat. If a liberal is a vegetarian, they want to ban all meat products for everyone. If a conservative sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy. A liberal wonders how to surrender gracefully and still look good. If a conservative is homosexual, they quietly enjoy their life. If a liberal is homosexual, they loudly demand legislated respect. If a black man or...

You have to hand it to the Iranians, boys. If there is anyone these days that does not buy into the BS of the Obama Administration, it is the Iranians. Good for them. The Iranian SOBs have not given two shots (expletive avoided) for what Barack Hussein Obama spouts from his overly-educated, yet un-enlightened, mouth. They could care less; and good for them. For all the invective that could be heaped—and should be heaped—on the Iranian nut-job government, at least they can call a spade a spade. Americans cannot, apparently, yet, do the same. To do so, is not fashionable…yet....

Return to the Article October 04, 2009Unexpected Outgrowths of the Tea Party MovementBy Lloyd Marcus Is God back? While watching the Glenn Beck program, three women, yes I said three, boldly proclaimed their Christianity and how their decision to follow Christ has affected their politics. Other than religious programs, people do not talk about their faith on TV without being portrayed as fanatics or nut cases. It was truly refreshing. Could this mean God is back from exile from the public square? Another Beck show guest was a black man, Charles V. Payne, founder, CEO and Chief Analyst of...

Since its entry into the Union, in the aftermath of war and the midst of gold fever, the state has seemed an improbable colossus. But again and again, California has made its way through hours of challenge – not only surviving intact, but emerging as a model for the rest of the nation. In the 19th century, despite immense geographic, ethnic, political, and social differences, Californians managed to form a cohesive identity, resisting numerous efforts to divide the state. They overcame the "curse of natural resources" that so long afflicted other commodity-rich states (and still afflicts some, like Alaska), laying the groundwork...